Heraklion

The largest Minoan palace site, where the excavator Evans recast columns and walls in concrete during the 1900s, leaving red columns standing. Tour coaches pour in around 10am, so arrive right at opening.

The Minoan finds of Knossos and Phaistos gather here, with the Phaistos Disc and the snake goddess figures on the ground floor. The original frescoes, such as the bull leaping scene, are upstairs, and many people miss them.

A sea fort built by Venice in the sixteenth century guarding the old harbour entrance, with winged lion reliefs still on its walls. The roof overlooks the port, and walking the long breakwater beyond it to the end gives a view back over the whole city.

The author of Zorba the Greek lies on the southern bastion of the Venetian walls. His stone reads I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free, and a walk atop the ramparts leads there; there is no fee.

At its centre is the Morosini Fountain, put up by a Venetian governor in 1628, with four stone lions holding the basin. Old shops ringing the fountain bake bougatsa each morning, making the square where people take breakfast.

A narrow street named for the uprising of 1866, lined on both sides with cheese, olive, herb and butcher stalls. Turn off into the side lane halfway along and a row of small eateries appears where shoppers stop for lunch.

A museum covering Crete from Byzantine times to the present, and among the few spots on the island displaying two paintings by the Crete born El Greco. A room holds the study of Kazantzakis moved here intact.

The church of Saint Titus, first bishop of Crete, whose skull relic was carried to Venice and returned in 1966; it rests in a silver case in a small chapel inside the church. The building still shows the shape it took as a mosque.

A Minoan palace site an hour's drive south, which unlike Knossos was never rebuilt, so only paving and stairs remain. It sits on a ridge facing the Messara plain and Mount Ida, and draws far thinner crowds.

A vineyard village a little further south from Knossos, with restored neoclassical houses filling its lanes. The square's tavernas pour wine from nearby grapes, and an afternoon visit finds it quiet, with no tour groups.

Heraklion's protector, Saint Minas, received this cathedral in 1895, it ranks among Greece's largest churches. Its far smaller, older namesake huddles right beside it, and the contrast in scale is striking. Inside, chandeliers and murals crowd every surface.

A two-storey arcaded hall where Venetian nobles gathered from the 1620s, now the city hall. Wartime bombing in the 1940s left it badly damaged, and it was rebuilt to the old design. A few steps up the main street from Lions Square.

Capital of Roman Crete, where the Law Code of Gortyn, fifth century BC statutes cut into a stone wall, survives. Its lines run right then left in turn, like an ox ploughing. The ruined Basilica of Agios Titos by the entrance comes on the same visit.

A south coast village where Roman-era tombs honeycomb the sandstone cliff beside the beach. In the 1960s hippies lived in those caves. The cave area is fenced and ticketed, and shuts toward sunset.

Minoan palace ruins on the coastal flats by the resort of Malia, with eight round grain pits lined up at the southwest corner. The kernos, a round stone slab pitted with hollows, is taken to have held offerings. A roof over part of the dig gives some shade.

Built on a former US base at Gournes, about 15km east of town. Dozens of tanks hold Mediterranean fish, sharks and jellyfish. When a midsummer noon makes the beach too hot, it suits families with children.

A memorial to the writer Nikos Kazantzakis in Myrtia, some 20km south of Heraklion. Manuscripts, letters, translations of Zorba the Greek in many languages and film material are gathered here. From the square out front, vineyard hills fall away.